I am the author of TimeLimit. This App is currently available in Google Play and F-Droid.
Recently, Google complained about it uploading the users list of installed Apps without prominent disclosure. There is currently a seven day deadline after which it was announced to be removed from their store. This is actually an advantage compared to my previous experiences where I was informed after the actual blocking (removal) happened.
If I would know that the App violated their policy, I would fix that. Actually, I did that in the past for the same policy - degrading the user experience by permitting users to disable a part of a feature instead of just informing them before that feature is used. For simplification, this modifications were applied to the F-Droid version too. While there is an “appeal” process, they could not understand/did not check my claim that I fulfill their policy but additionally could not explain me the exact problem (Did they not find the educational screen? Do they dislike it? Do they think that data is transmitted before the screen is shown?). It actually felt like talking to an AI system that just replicates human behavior without actually understanding why certain replies were sent in the past.
For those who want to know it: It is not advertised but the App list is transmitted end to end encrypted. This implementation is not audited so it could be bad. But that is not what Google told me. There is actually a good chance of an automated scanner having difficulties due to this as this cryptography stuff could be some malware trying to hide some data.
The last release could have contributed to issues in some automated process as that exact transmission of the App list was changed. The data (before the encryption step) is currently encoded as Protocol Buffers (some Google invention) and the new release supports DER too (well known from its use in X509 certificates used in TLS/HTTPS). I did not like the original Protocol Buffer implementation and used [Wire]( GitHub - square/wire: gRPC and protocol buffers for Android, Kotlin, Swift and Java. · GitHub ) which has difficulties with recent Gradle versions (build system commonly used for Android Apps). So this is a step to remove difficult components from the App. Now try to reach a human in the review process that is capable of understanding complex things …
The DSA (Digital Services Act) could help me in theory using its “out-of-court dispute settlement (ODS) bodies“ - https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-court-dispute-settlement. Most organizations from that field are focused at social media. However, those bodies do not investigate that actual facts so I do not see a good chance of some useful result. And moreover, they can only suggest the gatekeeper a solution as they are not courts.
So this is a good moment for the experiment of “leaving” Google Play. I can not provide in app purchases anymore in this case. In the past, I only provided alternatives via request by mail. The plan to provide a better process existed for a long time and now there was a reason to actually implement it.